


And My Heart Cannot Be

by TheBraveHobbit, theharellan



Series: I Have Found a Home (Ian x Solas) [9]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-04 02:32:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12761253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBraveHobbit/pseuds/TheBraveHobbit, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theharellan/pseuds/theharellan
Summary: A scouting mission on the Storm Coast is ambushed by Red Templars, and though the Inquisitor may arrive in time to save Ian's life, they find him greatly changed.And when the worst should happen, is it a weak heart that clings to hope? Time changes everything, so be careful what you wait for.CWs: anxiety, panic attack, tranquility, torture, violence.





	And My Heart Cannot Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of drabbles & roleplays about the relationship my (non-Inquisitor) Lavellan and Solas as interpreted by theharellan. This is a repost of a drabble covering Ian's personal quest. Canon divergent.

The moon rises slowly over the Waking Sea, and Ian watches it with hooded eyes, teeth clamped around his pipe as he smokes away the tension of the day’s frantic activities. He has not wandered far from the tents, afraid to distance himself from the cots and the makeshift sickbeds and the wounded that he has traveled here to tend. Thankfully, few are beyond his aid, but even with the aid of lyrium he has far overextended himself in their care. 

“Strange.”

He does not turn his head–the movement is too demanding, it’s too difficult to battle the stiffness that has settled into his shoulders–but his eyelids lift and his gaze slides sideways, brows lifted in curious inquiry as the dwarf settles down beside him. 

Harding’s fingers land atop one of his pouches at his belt, loosed and set aside as he had found a moment’s reprieve. She reaches without ceremony, pulling free a tiny crystal phial, tightly capped and sealed with wax. The bottle glows with a weak, sickly light as she lifts it, watching the moonlight drown in the faceted curves. 

“You don’t strike me as the sort who keeps things like this close.” 

“You don’t strike me as the sort who digs through others’ things.” His admonition is not harsh, but the smile on his face is sad as he sits back, letting his eyes drift shut. 

“You don’t fight; I’ve never seen you cast a single fireball.”

“No.” 

“So why keep Quiet Death at your hip?”

Ian does not answer immediately, pulling from his pipe in a deep inhale. When he breathes, he seems to pay more attention to shaping artful rings of smoke than to the question, and the air has long cleared before he murmurs:

“Because there are things in this world that I fear more.” 

* * *

Traveling in the rain is a miserable affair, but there are more wounded at another camp and waiting for the weather to clear is as selfish as it is impossible. He pulls his hood over his ears, tugging it low so it shields his eyes against the torrent. The Storm Coast is well named, one of the scouts quips, and Ian chuckles even as his heart aches for the dry expanses that had become his home, for the feeling of loose sand beneath his feet that is not accompanied by sick squelching as he lifts his heel. Similarly, though, he longs for the shelter of Skyhold. There is warmth there, as well. Gently crackling fires and the pillow of another’s shoulder. A safe place to sit in silence while he reads, a touch to lean into.

The wandering of his thoughts is a pleasant diversion, and for a time he forgets the water that seeps into his socks and the damp that assails his bones with chill. He drifts in and out of the ambient conversation; he has little to contribute to the scouts’ chatter and he is yet too weary to find entertainment in their gossip. He is not truly drawn into the chatter around him until voices raise in alarm, sounding a warning as an ambush descends, arrows slapping into the sand with wet _thuck_ s. Their path had led away from the beach to a narrow trail that wound between a break in the span of cliffs overlooking the shore.  Whatever efforts the Inquisition had made to secure this route, it has not been held.

Ian’s hands grow tight over his staff. The barrier he throws over their party comes faster than thought, his first instinct to shield his companions. Eyes cast in wild desperation, the sharp turn of his head sending his hood blowing back as he stares over the cliff faces to find that the steep incline blocks their assailants from view. Around him, the scouts loose arrows of their own, and though he knows they’re firing blind he cringes as wounded howling testifies to their luck–or to the sheer mass of foes that line the cliff. 

The cries of injured much closer to where he stands draws his attention, and he kneels in the muck to twist his fingers around the shaft of an arrow whose aim had been too true. A second barrier circles the pair of them as the first loses strength, and Ian’s focus narrows to nothing more than the wounded scout before him. Blood heats his fingers, slicking the raw leather of his gloves, but he’s too familiar with this to be offset, and though his teeth grit until pain assails his jaw, his motions are quick and practiced. 

“D-don’t.” 

“I must; it cannot stay–”

“No, it’s too–”

Another arrow lands, and though the tip is repelled by his barrier, Ian falls forward, hardly catching himself before he crushes the woman he is trying to save. Ragged breathing beneath him is broken by a wet sob, and Ian looks anywhere but her face, scanning the path back to the beach in search of an escape. His own breath catches in a tortured choke as any hope of retreat is crushed beneath heavily booted feet. Where these Templars materialized from matters far less than that they are there. 

The chaos around him is filled with cursing and shouts as his companions reach an awareness of their predicament. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, even a fool would know: there will be no leaving this valley in liberty, if any of them leave it at all.  


Fingers claw at his wrist.

“G-get–”

Ian hunkers over her wound, and they both pretend that the stinging in their eyes is the sharp fall of rain.

“You’re a shif–a shifter. Get…get run-running.” 

He considers, just for a moment. He’s good at running when things grow difficult; it’s easier to flee than to face the things that frighten him, that burden him. The choice to abandon these people is the coward’s escape, and he knows it, and yet as his hands fall to stem the flow of blood, he considers flight. 

“Hold still.” He commands. His fingers grow warm as the torn skin beneath them begins to knit together. 

“Ian–”

“I said hold st–” 

He stands, because they are out of time, and he steps over her to lay another barrier, a shield raised in a hopeless effort, a last attempt that he cannot deny himself. His lids drop, ears flat against the wet curtain of his hair, trying to spare himself the agonized cries of the dying scouts he cannot save. His barrier dissolves, fading uselessly away as the Templars blast through his connection to the Fade. His staff drops, the focus slamming painfully into his toes, and he dares not look up, dares not show anyone his despair.

Their efforts leave him cold, colder than the rain and colder than his fear. His very blood feels lacking, empty, and he’s knocked off his feet by the force of their banishment. The slam of his back into the cliff tears at his clothes. There is no breath left in him, winded first by the dispell and then by the crash, but as his head cracks against stone his eyes start open. His blood feels warmer as it mats his hair and burns the back of his neck, though within his heart it is still iced. His fingers do not tremble as he reaches to his side, blindly sliding his hand into his bag. The chance to flee has passed. He could not change his skin even if he chose to run. There is no time. The Templars will give him no opportunity to regain his mana, and another blast will force away his fur should some miracle spare him to the point that he could take it. 

A crystalline phial catches between his fingers, and he thumbs away the wax. Braced against the slick stone cliff face, Ian takes a steading inhale. The advance of the Templars has not relented, but each breath Ian takes spans centuries. His eyes drift shut as he reaches for the stopper, and his vision is overtaken by the memory of color, of bright blue overcast by stormy grey.  

His hand stills. 

The hesitation only lasts a moment, but that moment is too long. There’s a hand on his throat, on his wrist, and the phial slips from his fingers as that choice, too, abandons him.

* * *

The caves are less dark than they should be; the hot pulsing of the tainted lyrium casts an angry glow over the chains that circle his wrists. Ian has long since lost the ability to hold himself upright; pride is too rare in the best of circumstances, and exhaustion and pain bend his back and bow his shoulders. His own blood stiffens his clothes and gums his skin, and his hair falls in clumps across the eyes he does not open until the sharp toe of a steel boot bruises his ribs. Raw coughing doubles him over, staining the stones with wet blackness.

Gloved fingers tangle in his hair, and his feet scramble to catch his weight, to lessen the pull that jerks him upright.

"How many times do I have to ask you, you bloody knife-ear?"

Ian chokes, his words painted by the metallic burn that coats the inside of his mouth, but his response comes with sharpness.

"At least once more, Layne."

The Templar scowls, and Ian's teeth rattle as Layne shakes him. He cannot stop himself from crying out as he lands, his elbow the first part of him to meet the ground.

"I remember what a menace you were, you feral little rabbit. The Hero had no business stealing you from Kinloch Hold, and I had you cornered in Kirkwall."

Ian can't dedicate anything to an answer. He's far too occupied with the effort it takes to breathe past the blood that clogs his throat. He supposes it shouldn't surprise him that Layne remembers his face; how many times had the Templar chased him over the hills that shadowed Lake Callenhad? How many times had Ian failed in his flight, his escape cut short by an icy blast of pain, his vision swimming as he looked up to see the hunter standing victorious, sword in one hand and phylactery in the other? Finding Layne again in Kirkwall had been the stuff of nightmares, and Ian wasn't surprised to discover that the escape on the docks had been taken personally.

“I should have expected to find you caught up with this rabble. Cowering in some would-be hero’s shadow and pretending it means something.”  


Bound fists tremble as he pushes against the stone, but the effort to haul himself to his knees is too much. He collapses in a heap, forehead braced against his fingers. His breathing comes in shallow sobs, and he hates himself for being unable to stem the wetness on his cheeks.

"Shut up."

Ian shudders, shifting his fists so that his teeth drive into his knuckle. Muffling the sound of his misery is all he can manage.

* * *

He wishes they'd kill him.

He wishes he'd not dropped his only escape.

He can't answer their questions, but he wishes he could. Sparing himself more pain is second only in his thoughts behind the desire to refrain from compromising the Inquisition.

There is no point to torture, there is no purpose to pain. He can't take comfort in his resistance, can't assign reason to the things that are happening. His tormentors are firey in their righteousness, and in that way it is no different than the agonies of his youth.

He cannot judge the passage of time. There is no sun, no wind. He drifts between now and years past, and the longer he is chained the less reality he knows.

It doesn't matter. The caves on the Storm Coast or the dungeons of Kinloch Hold. There is no sun, and there is no wind. There is darkness and there are chains and there is torment and he wishes that they'd killed him.

* * *

He can't answer their questions. There's no voice left in him, worn away by tears and screams. He hears them speaking, but their words carry no meaning. Had he the strength, he would recoil from the hands that tighten around his biceps, but he only wilts, suspended in their grip.

His chin rests against his chest until his face is lifted for him, rough fingers dug into matted hair. It isn't until he sees the brand that he realizes, that he finds it in himself to struggle. Panic lends him strength, and the chains upon his wrists scrape away scabs as he jerks and writhes. Another hand catches his chin, stilling his flailing.

"D-don't." He begs, weeping without sound. "Please."

He cringes as the burn of lyrium heats his face, hovering over his skin, but he cannot turn his head. His eyes shut, as though casting himself into blindness might save him, as if banishing this nightmare from his sight might spare him from its onslaught. His eyes shut, and his heart skips, and he thinks of blue-grey eyes. His gut twists. He hardly has the time to realize that far more than his magic, they are about to steal his love. He screams when the brand seals his forehead. Even as his fear fades, the pain does not.

He thinks of blue-grey eyes, but the quickening of his heart is only in response to the blinding burn on his brow.

* * *

He does not answer their questions.

It is not loyalty that stays his tongue, not exactly. He does not wish to see the Inquisition fail, because he cannot fathom a better way for the world to set itself upright.

He does not answer their questions, and they are angry and frustrated, but they cannot give a logical reason for him to concede.

He would rather they leave him alone, because his body is battered and bloody and broken. He speaks when they address him, though he does not answer their questions.

* * *

He knows that most people feel alarm when they hear the sounds of battle. He remembers the way it used to flood his body with chill, how panic had been so prone to fogging his mind.

He is not afraid, however. He's...almost curious. Almost. The clamoring and loudness makes the pain in his head worsen, and he misses quiet. Voices carry, voices he recognizes. His head lifts without his heart, and he watches the door, blinking slowly.  

He would stand, had he the strength. It seems like he should stand. He does not. He sits as upright as he can, leaning on the cold wall as he watches the door. Waiting had once been his weakness, impatience had once torn at his mind, but now he sits in still silence. The door will open or it will not, and he finds that--though he would prefer being found--he is not alarmed by the possibility that he might die waiting.

He had not considered a rescue. His spirit should lift, but hope is as lost to memory as his magic, and the only relief he really seeks is for someone to tend his injuries.

" _Ian_!" The Inquisitor is relieved, sagging in the doorway. "Are you alright?"

"I am in pain." He answers, and he notes the horror on the Inquisitor's face, recoiling from the sound of his voice. He remembers how troubled he had once been, how he had avoided being around the Tranquil, but it does not disturb him to see the Inquisitor's discomfort. It would be easier to be like him, he thinks. There is no burden of emotion, no reason to be alarmed. He does his best to offer comfort, a logical following to his prior statement that he thinks might ease a fretting heart, "But I am no longer in danger of dying."


End file.
